The Penna model for biological ageing on a lattice: spatial consequences of child-care

We introduce a square lattice into the Penna bit-string model for biological ageing and study the evolution of the spatial distribution of the population considering different strategies of child-care. Two of the strategies are related to the movements of a whole family on the lattice: in one case the mother cannot move if she has any child younger than a given age, and in the other case if she moves, she brings these young children with her. A stronger condition has also been added to the second case, considering that young children die with a higher probability if their mothers die, this probability decreasing with age. We show that a highly non uniform occupation can be obtained when child-care is considered, even for an uniform initial occupation per site. We also compare the standard survival rate of the model with that obtained when the spacial lattice is considered (without any kind of child-care).Comment: 8 pages, 6 Postscript figure

Generation of Superposition States and Charge-Qubit Relaxation Probing in a Circuit

We demonstrate how a superposition of coherent states can be generated for a microwave field inside a coplanar transmission line coupled to a single superconducting charge qubit, with the addition of a single classical magnetic pulse for chirping of the qubit transition frequency. We show how the qubit dephasing induces decoherence on the field superposition state, and how it can be probed by the qubit charge detection. The character of the charge qubit relaxation process itself is imprinted in the field state decoherence profile.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Applications and Sexual Version of a Simple Model for Biological Ageing

We use a simple model for biological ageing to study the mortality of the population, obtaining a good agreement with the Gompertz law. We also simulate the same model on a square lattice, considering different strategies of parental care. The results are in agreement with those obtained earlier with the more complicated Penna model for biological ageing. Finally, we present the sexual version of this simple model.Comment: For Int.J.Mod.Phys.C Dec. 2001; 11 pages including 6 fig

The mechanism for the electrooxidation of procarbazine pharmaceutical preparation in alkaline media and its mathematical description

The mechanism for the electrooxidation of procarbazine in alkaline media has been proposed. The process is realized completely on the electrode surface and is adsorption-controlled. The oscillatory behavior in this case is more probable, than for neutral media and may be caused by influences of electrochemical oxidation and salt dissolution from the electrode surface

Random-energy model in random fields

The random-energy model is studied in the presence of random fields. The problem is solved exactly both in the microcanonical ensemble, without recourse to the replica method, and in the canonical ensemble using the replica formalism. The phase diagrams for bimodal and Gaussian random fields are investigated in detail. In contrast to the Gaussian case, the bimodal random field may lead to a tricritical point and a first-order transition. An interesting feature of the phase diagram is the possibility of a first-order transition from paramagnetic to mixed phase.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures (included

Simulations of a mortality plateau in the sexual Penna model for biological ageing

The Penna model is a strategy to simulate the genetic dynamics of age-structured populations, in which the individuals genomes are represented by bit-strings. It provides a simple metaphor for the evolutionary process in terms of the mutation accumulation theory. In its original version, an individual dies due to inherited diseases when its current number of accumulated mutations, n, reaches a threshold value, T. Since the number of accumulated diseases increases with age, the probability to die is zero for very young ages (n = T). Here, instead of using a step function to determine the genetic death age, we test several other functions that may or may not slightly increase the death probability at young ages (n < T), but that decreases this probability at old ones. Our purpose is to study the oldest old effect, that is, a plateau in the mortality curves at advanced ages. Imposing certain conditions, it has been possible to obtain a clear plateau using the Penna model. However, a more realistic one appears when a modified version, that keeps the population size fixed without fluctuations, is used. We also find a relation between the birth rate, the age-structure of the population and the death probability.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.

When Politicians Talk About Politics: Identifying Political Tweets of Brazilian Congressmen

Since June 2013, when Brazil faced the largest and most significant mass protests in a generation, a political crisis is in course. In midst of this crisis, Brazilian politicians use social media to communicate with the electorate in order to retain or to grow their political capital. The problem is that many controversial topics are in course and deputies may prefer to avoid such themes in their messages. To characterize this behavior, we propose a method to accurately identify political and non-political tweets independently of the deputy who posted it and of the time it was posted. Moreover, we collected tweets of all congressmen who were active on Twitter and worked in the Brazilian parliament from October 2013 to October 2017. To evaluate our method, we used word clouds and a topic model to identify the main political and non-political latent topics in parliamentarian tweets. Both results indicate that our proposal is able to accurately distinguish political from non-political tweets. Moreover, our analyses revealed a striking fact: more than half of the messages posted by Brazilian deputies are non-political.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Collapse of Primordial Clouds

We present here studies of collapse of purely baryonic Population III objects with masses ranging from $10M_\odot$ to $10^6M_\odot$. A spherical Lagrangian hydrodynamic code has been written to study the formation and evolution of the primordial clouds, from the beginning of the recombination era ($z_{rec} \sim 1500$) until the redshift when the collapse occurs. All the relevant processes are included in the calculations, as well as, the expansion of the Universe. As initial condition we take different values for the Hubble constant and for the baryonic density parameter (considering however a purely baryonic Universe), as well as different density perturbation spectra, in order to see their influence on the behavior of the Population III objects evolution. We find, for example, that the first mass that collapses is $8.5\times10^4M_\odot$ for $h=1$, $\Omega=0.1$ and $\delta_i={\delta\rho / \rho}=(M / M_o)^{-1/3}(1+z_{rec})^{-1}$ with the mass scale $M_o=10^{15}M_\odot$. For $M_o=4\times10^{17}M_\odot$ we obtain $4.4\times10^{4}M_\odot$ for the first mass that collapses. The cooling-heating and photon drag processes have a key role in the collapse of the clouds and in their thermal history. Our results show, for example, that when we disregard the Compton cooling-heating, the collapse of the objects with masses $>8.5\times10^4M_\odot$ occurs earlier. On the other hand, disregarding the photon drag process, the collapse occurs at a higher redshift.Comment: 10 pages, MN plain TeX macros v1.6 file, 9 PS figures. Also available at http://www.iagusp.usp.br/~oswaldo (click "OPTIONS" and then "ARTICLES"). MNRAS in pres

Utilização de herbicidas no controle de plantas indesejáveis em pastagem natural.

A aplicação de herbicidas sob a pastagem natural, tanto para o estabelecimento de pastagens cultivadas através do plantio direto, como no controle de plantas indesejáveis tem crescido nos últimos anos. A pesquisa, até o presente momento não dispõe de informações seguras para recomendar tal procedimento. O efeito de herbicidas sobre uma vegetação natural tão diversificada e rica em espécies forrageiras tem sido uma das maiores interrogantes neste processo.bitstream/item/55664/1/ct24-1999.pd